"Where?"
"At the Providence depot, just as the snow stopped falling."
Nick Carter took a deep drink of his coffee and listened very intently now.
"What was she doing?" asked one of the speakers. "Going to New York?"
"Precisely. I bowed to her and asked if I could be of any service. She simply asked me the best hotel to stop at in Providence. I told her, and said, ‘You are surely not going to stop at that awful hole.’"
"You have cheek," interrupted one of the diners.
"Oh, you be blowed!" said the gentleman named Porter. "The girl laughed at the idea of remaining in Providence. She said that she merely intended stopping there for the night, and that she was going to New York by the nine o’clock boat to-day."
"If Rogers hears that you are interesting yourself in that girl, Porter, it will be pistols and coffee for two. By the way, what’s the divinity’s name?"
"Alvarez. I think she is a Cuban, or South American, or something of that kind."
Nick didn’t wait to hear any more.[Pg 17]